Samba Spy case: Army Tribunal seeks Court Martial documents

About 35 years after five soldiers were sacked and jailed in the Samba Spy Case, the Armed Forces Tribunal on Monday asked the Army to produce their court martial documents, raising their hopes of clearing their names in the infamous scandal.
On a petition by Gunners Banarasi Das, Milkhi R

About 35 years after five soldiers were sacked and jailed in the Samba Spy Case, the Armed Forces Tribunal on Monday asked the Army to produce their court martial documents, raising their hopes of clearing their names in the infamous scandal.

On a petition by Gunners Banarasi Das, Milkhi Ram, Satpal, Harish Singh and Balkar Singh, the Tribunal Bench headed by Justice S S Kulshreshtha said the Army should produce the documents by June 30 failing which "adverse inference" will be made about Army's contention.

Banarasi Das, Milkhi Ram, Satpal, Harish Singh and Balkar Singh, were sacked and jailed in 1975-76 after being held responsible of spying on the basis of their two colleagues Gunners Sarwan Dass and Aya Singh. They served jail terms between seven to 14 years.

In the first case of its kind, around 60 personnel including 10 civilians working with 168 Brigade and deployed along the Line of Control were punished after being accused of spying for Pakistan on the basis of statements of Sarwan Dass and Aya Singh.

The appeals of the soldiers who are making efforts to get their names cleared were among the cases transferred from the High Court to the Tribunal after it was launched in August last year.

"This is the first time in over 34 years since the case came up that we would get to see the court martial documents.

I am hopeful that this will make it easier for us to get justice," said Deepak Bhattacharya, counsel for the five gunners.

In the case of two other accused Captain A K Rana and Captain R S Rathore, whose pleas are still pending in the Supreme Court, the Tribunal said it would hear their case on September 7.

Rana said that he and Captain Rathore were acquitted of spying charges by Delhi High Court in 2000, but the verdict was challenged by the Army in the Supreme Court.

Over 50 Army personnel were arrested in the case in two lots between 1975 to 1979.

In the first lot, around 12 people were arrested and punished by the Army including Sarwan Dass' Company Commander, who was jailed for over 10 years around 1975.

Rathore told PTI that in custody of the Military Intelligence for over two years, Sarwan Dass and Aya Singh kept on adding names of officers and men in the list of spies working for Pakistan resulting in arrest of over 45 people around 1978-79.

Rathore demanded that the truth of the case should be brought out as such a large number of people were tortured and jailed without any reason.

Interestingly, the whole case got opened up after the the Intelligence Bureau caught Sarwan Dass and Aya Singh on spying charges but they were not punished by the Army for espionage but for petty offences such as being 'Absent without Leave'.

Sarwan Das had appeared before a press conference in 1994 and declared that he had falsely implicated the officers and jawans in the case under pressure from MI officers of that time, Rathore said.

Sarwan Dass at present lives in his village near Jammu whereas Aya Singh was reportedly shot dead by troops while trying to enter Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) crossing the Line of Control in 1990.

Do You Like This Story? Awesome! Now share the story Too bad. Tell us what you didn't like in the comments